Rooms of light: bearing witness to the Azerbaijani hospitable being

This thesis makes the claim that Azerbaijani ways of life are shaped by deep paradigms of hospitable being, an ontological hospitality. Qonaqpərvərlik, the Azerbaijani concept of ‘hospitality’, is described as a state of co-existence within which hospitable persons entrust one another with preservation of hospitable conditions. These conditions are experienced by Azerbaijanis as a shared commitment to interpersonal attentiveness and availability with the aim of assuring that hospitality roles are possible. Developed within the disciplinary stream of existential anthropology, this work is structured around an anthology of Azerbaijani hospitality encounters, developing and employing the phenomenological methodology of narrated ethnography. The hospitality roles of host, guest and witness, within Azerbaijani ways of hospitality, are described, providing insights into the manner in which Azerbaijanis live invitationally, negotiating needs and capacities within sustained conditions of gracious trust. The mobility of the Azerbaijani hospitable being is presented, revealing a formation of self as one continually on the way towards others. The process of seeking respite from challenges faced by the hospitable being due to experiences such as war and rapid social change, is explored. In the face of these challenges, the role of hospitable witness is shown to be vital for maintaining cohesion and coherence within Azerbaijani ways of hospitality. Attentive co-presence, life lived in faithful observance of others as well as pursuit of opportunities to engage them hospitably, is the unifying function played by the hospitable witness. This written presentation of research is an act of existential witness, to the persons Azerbaijanis are and become in their ways of hospitality, by the person into whom I have been transformed through encounters with these ways. It is based on more than twenty-five years, sharing ways of life with Azerbaijanis, eight of which were spent on this focused research, from 2014-2022.